[ExI] intellectual property again

Emlyn emlynoregan at gmail.com
Fri Mar 5 06:00:53 UTC 2010


On 5 March 2010 13:29, JOSHUA JOB <nanite1018 at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mar 4, 2010, at 9:34 PM, Emlyn wrote:
>> I agree that personal sovereignty is desirable. We should have power
>> over ourselves comparable to a sovereign state over its territory
>> (putting aside our feelings about sovereign states for the minute).
>> But, self ownership implies the ability to sell oneself. Does
>> sovereignty require that? Does the rights-based-in-property-rights
>> position require the ability to sell oneself into slavery?
>
> Ownership is the right to control. Self-ownership is complete control over yourself, which is a given from the nature of human beings, and a requirement of survival.

Well that's definitional, but can you cede this self control
irrevocably (ie: without the ability to take it back against the
wishes of the entity to whom you ceded it)?

>
>> I tend much more toward rule utilitarianism.
> Well there is one major difference, I reject
> utilitarianism as an origin for rights, instead opting
> with a logical derivation from the the nature of
> person's (which to some extent I have already given).
> That is, almost certainly, the root of our differences
> on this issue.

Definitely, and that's why I went into that territory.

btw, I think with regard to self-ownership (in a self-as-property
sense) it is a stretch to somehow call it based in nature. It's a
socially constructed view of person, for a start, and an arbitrary
ideal chosen as a starting point (exactly as human rights are). I
think to claim otherwise requires some pretty serious handwaving.

However, I wont damn libertarians based on that. You have to start
with some principle, the universe gives us nothing but the promise of
a bounded existence.

>
>>  Part of that protection is actually to deny individuals the ability to sell
>> themselves into slavery! More precisely, I would say that there should
>> be no ability to enforce a contract that includes servitude of one
>> party to another. Probably many human rights can be framed in terms of
>> classes of unenforceable contracts.
>
> You do have the right to enslave yourself. It's stupid
> as all get-out to do so, but I see no logical reason it
> should be impossible. If you enter into the contract
> without threat of physical force, it was your decision.

If you deny the existence of asymmetrical power relationships then
yes, it's illogical. But I build my position on that assumption, and
am willing to offer all of human existence up to this point in time as
evidence. (note: don't bother too much to argue this point right here,
I'll go into more detail below)

>
>> I flat out deny that in a landscape of strongly assymetrical power
>> relations, we can simply assume that all contracts are entered into
>> freely. Those with more power will coerce those with less power, in
>> myriad ways, into contracts which run counter to the interests of the
>> less powerful party.

> How can you coerce someone without actually using > coercion, i.e. physical force or threat of force?

Coerce is a contentious word. If you define coerce to mean the threat
of force, then sure, you can't coerce without force by definition.
What I meant by coerce is something like "strongly influence with
extreme prejudice" (someone throw me a more exact word?).

> Saying "I'll fire you if you don't do X" might be one
> example you might be thinking of (and quite possibly
> an obvious possible example). But either that is
> perfectly fine (as X was included under your
> business contract, or there is a clause saying he can
> fire you for any reason at all) or it is a violation of
> your contractual obligation with your employer (that
> is, it is not in the job description, and according to
> the contract, you cannot be fired or reprimanded
> unless you are not meeting job criteria). It isn't
> coercion if it is within their right to act in that way.
> Only violations of actual rights (i.e. property rights,
> personal sovereignty; or put another way, stealing,
> murder, assault, fraud) are instances of coercion or
> force. Without actual force, you are always free, at
> least in any civilized society such as ours, to choose
> differently than another would like you to.

Yes, but this all assumes there is no such thing as power relations.
So the example you give above is true for someone who doesn't need the
job; they can in principle rationally weigh costs and benefits, and
either party can terminate the contract according to its conditions as
desired.

But the real world is not like this.

Much more common is that an employee is quite dependent apon a job.
They might be an unskilled worker who will take no transferable skills
to the job market. Or they might be indebted and thus be unable to
tolerate even a short period without an income. Or they may be highly
trained and experienced workers who have highly specialized skills,
for which there is a very limited market (perhaps for example a rocket
scientist!)

Such a person is in an unequal power relationship with an employer who
believes they can replace the employee easily. So, although there is
no force, it is very easy to imagine scenarios where such employees
trade away benefits (holidays? overtime? health insurance? permanent
employee status?) simply because their employer "requests" it of them.
The request is perceived as an order with which they must comply,
because of the power relationship. This person will understand that
the change is not in their interest, that they are now worse off. They
will feel forced to make the decision they make. That is power being
exercised.

Similarly, individuals with prized and or rare skills can extort
employers, the power relationship running the other way. This happens
a lot in software development. Think of the lone developer who is the
only person who understands the system, who hides knowledge to that
end. If that person asks for a raise, or extra holidays, or whatever,
they'll get it, and it'll look like a rational transaction, but their
employer may in fact feel forced, they may feel that the employee is
holding them hostage (because if the system goes down, they go out of
business). They are forced. This is power.

I'm not necessarily defending the weaker parties in these situations.
Being deep in debt is at least partly the fault of the debter, and the
ensuing powerlessness is foreseeable. The company with the all
powerful lone developer should have taken steps much earlier to have
not been in the situation. And yet the situation obtains, the power is
real, and calling people foolish or stupid or whatever doesn't change
that reality.

>> So back to the matter at hand, I hold sovereignty over the self as
>> basic, not derived from property rights. I don't have to "own" myself
>> to not be enslaveable; rather, it should be impossible for me to enter
>> into a binding contract which causes me to be enslaved, and the state
>> or other equivalent holder of a monopoly on force should intervene on
>> my behalf should I find myself enslaved. Similarly with other breaches
>> of individual sovereignty.
>
> Why exactly is it impossible for you to be able to
> enter into such a contract voluntarily?

I think it should probably be possible to enter into such a contract
(disingenuous as it may be), but it should not be possible to be bound
to that agreement (exactly as is the case now in free societies - you
cannot be bound by such a contract).

> It is plainly
> obvious there are ENORMOUS risks involved in
> doing so, to anyone with half a brain. So if you go
> ahead and do it anyways (so long as actual force or
> threat of force wasn't involved), you deserve what
> you get, in my opinion.

This is where we differ, and it is because of my contention that we
exist in a network of uneven power relations. If you could sell
yourself into slavery, very quickly many of the poorer people in the
world would be slaves. Why? Because they are dependent in some way or
another on some interaction with an entity far more powerful than them
(employer? credit agency? loanshark? walmart?), who will merely have
to say "Become my slave and I'll waive your debt" or "all employed
positions are redundant, but we are taken on slaves, sign up here" or
"become a slave and win this iphone!". It doesn't matter, again, if
you say these people are somehow bad or foolish for taking up such
"offers", the fact remains that it would happen, en-masse, and it
would be due to the exercise of power, be it not directly violent, by
the powerful over the weak.

>
> The major problem I see with your position, is that
> you essentially have every conceivable decision as
> being under duress, as there are always power
> relations involved (power meaning influence, not
> force), so all interactions with others are not free.

Yes! You understand me.

Now I don't say that all decisions are under duress. Actors of
relatively similar power will have free relations, absent the
influence of third parties. Duress, and just as importantly the
foreseeable possibility of duress, comes into play where power is
radically uneven. To maintain a free society, therefore, the project
is to mitigate uneven power relationships. eg: the separation of
powers in a democracy is designed to hamstring attempts to wield
necessary government powers as general purpose power outside of its
intended bounds.

> Any boundary between free and not free is
> meaningless in such a case, so I don't see how
> contracts could ever be enforced.

In fact some would agree entirely with this. I think there is nuance
here though; there is some range where relative powers are close
enough to treat as equal. We can proceed on the assumption that actors
are more or less in this range, leave it as the responsibility of
individuals that they don't fall into terribly asymmetric situations,
and try to rectify egregious examples of power imbalance where they
are being obviously abused. But it's always going to be messy and
imperfect.

> You get around it
> by invoking personal sovereignty, but it really seems
> to me that that is just a teensy-bit limited form of
> self-ownership, with all it implies.

It might be, but I think there's significant difference, which is the
inability to alienate yourself (or be alienated from) your rights. I
think that's a crucial difference because of an asymmetrical power
landscape.

-- 
Emlyn

http://www.songsofmiseryanddespair.com - My show, Fringe 2010
http://point7.wordpress.com - My blog



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